Cynthia Nixon Causes an LGBT Shit Fit

Cynthia Nixon Causes an LGBT Shit Fit

People like to misread things. Nothing and no one is sacred enough to stand in the way of a publicly-expressed viewpoint that could offend someone–anyone–or seem to speak for a more vast community without communal consent. Shame, then, on Cynthia Nixon, for having a viewpoint so interesting that it goes completely ignored and undiscussed in the gay community. In a recent New York Times profile, Nixon explained that her own homosexuality–no one else’s–was a choice, and that it was actually an empowering thing. One would think the ‘no one else’s’ disclaimer would exonerate her from the scorn of the community responsible for deifying her. If not that, than perhaps the opinion that gayness is more powerful as a choice than a predetermined state–but no.

It’s unsurprising that people would lash out against the expression of an opinion that’s not their own and doesn’t represent them, especially when it comes from someone who, as a gay person in the media, apparently has the responsibility of representing them. What is surprising is that instead of taking the remark as a point of one person’s philosophy, everyone’s busy talking about how the ‘enemy’ (the right) will use it. Honestly, should it be anyone’s responsibility to think about how their words will be misconstrued after they’ve come out of their mouth, or how they’d be used against them? These kinds of rules are death to intelligent conversation, and more importantly, death to any kind of publicly expressed dissent–the two things that progressive politics are all about.